Q&A: In conversation with Alice Musabende
By Anna Birakos
Alice Musabende is a Gates Scholar completing a PhD in International Relations at the University of Cambridge. She is a mother of two and a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, in which her family were killed along with over a million other Tutsis. Her radio series ‘Unspeakable’ explores the questions of second generational trauma and the importance of stories and legacy. Alice searches for a way to translate her experiences and the violence inflicted on her people to her two children, aged eight and five. The programme will air on BBC Radio 4 from the 2nd – 6th of August, 2021.
Earlier this week, Alice spoke to Anna Birakos, Ishami Foundation Project Outreach Volunteer. Their conversation was edited for clarity and length.
What is the project about and what was the central motivation behind it?
It is a radio documentary series that documents my search for a good way to tell my children, aged eight and five, about my family’s death and also about the genocide against the Tutsis of 1994. It was motivated by a search for the right words, the right moment and the right contextualisation, to talk to my kids but also other young people, who aren’t growing up in Rwanda, who are somewhat western raised – I wanted to find a way to make it make sense for them. There was also a second motivation, to start generating a conversation about how we talk to the next generation about the genocide against the Tutsi, its broader implications over time and what it means for them. It starts as a personal quest, to figure out how to make it make sense for them … that is at the heart of my programme.
Is there anything that you hope listeners will take from your story?
Yes. First, I believe it’s time we start to think about the long-term implications of the genocide against the Tutsis, for the children of survivors, and for future generations – it’s absolutely crucial to start having this conversation.
The second thing is that I hope people see it as a way to continue building empathy, for those who survived and who still struggle with the consequences, whether these are about mental health challenges or challenges of another nature and for second-generation survivors who are already dealing with the consequences of a tragedy that happened long before they were born. For the parents, one of those challenges is about finding the right words to say the unspeakable and to relay that to our children, because it involves re-living the trauma. It is my hope that we can continue to see that survivors are real people, with real feelings and real challenges every day. They walk around with all kinds of trauma and, in my case anyway, worry about what that trauma means for our children and their children after we are gone. I don’t think I am unique in that regard.
The third point is about education. Sadly, I don’t think that the world really understands the nature and implications of the tragic history of the genocide of the Tutsis. I think for many people outside of Rwanda, ‘it’s that thing that happened far away in Africa, it’s not a big deal if it’s not happening here. Isn’t it dangerous then, that our children would grow up thinking that way? Education about the genocide of the Tutsis and holding onto its memory is a crucial element of the ‘never again’: not just in Rwanda or in Africa but elsewhere. It is therefore fitting that we talk about it to children.
Could you describe your journey as a survivor and your experiences in 1994?
I was born and raised in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, and I was 13 and in my second year of high school when the genocide began. But the story of my family’s persecution doesn’t start in 1994; we’d had to move places a number of times and a number of our family members had been living in exile for many years before. In 1994, I had a sister, (seven years old) and a baby brother (three years old), we lived in my Grandpa’s house. On Wednesday April 6th, I was not home as I’d gone to visit my aunt. There were about twelve people in my home and not a single one of them walked out alive. With my aunt, we didn’t ‘escape’ really, but we sought refuge, first in a Red Cross Centre, but it quickly became very dangerous and we spent weeks seeking shelter in different parts of Kigali.
By the end of the genocide, my parents, my grand parents and all of my siblings had died. Along with my other aunt’s two young children, age 8 and 5. I survived, along with my aunt who raised me and her two kids. After the genocide, I had a lot of post traumatic issues for a long time but sadly it wasn’t something that my family, or I, understood at the time so I struggled a lot to make sense of it. Slowly, with the help of mental health professionals and with people who took me under their wing, I slowly recovered, went back to school, and later went to university. I have spent the last two decades trying to heal, but I didn’t really think that there would be a time when my children would ask me about my experiences. Many years ago a therapist had given me the idea of journaling, but you can’t write a journal and hand it to your children when they can’t read and write. They ask questions – they ask what happened to Grandma and Grandpa, or why they are never mentioned. It was only when I had children that I started having moments of pure anxiety where I would think… How am I going to do this? I mean, if I still need to see a therapist to talk about the things I remember and that still hurt, what on earth am I going to tell the kids when they ask?
This radio programme, is in a sense, my way to say to other parents – if you’re like me and you panic at the idea of having to explain something that you haven’t quite made sense of, you’re not alone. I use this one personal story, a very raw experience putting my life and my children’s lives out there; but I want to be clear, my story isn’t an exceptional one, in fact it’s a very ordinary survivor of the genocide story. I use it not because it is exceptional or more painful than other survivors’ experiences. I only use what I know to help start a conversation on what it means to raise children in the wake of a genocide.
Do you think sharing your story on a platform like BBC Radio 4 will change the way in which the public recognise the issues faced by survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi?
I don’t know but I hope so. You see, since 1994, most of the stories we hear or read in the media about the experiences of survivors are written by other people or, more often than not, told from a western perspective. Only recently, do we see survivors recounting their stories, talking about their survival and what’s happened to them since. Most of the stories, particularly in the media, tend to keep survivors’ life experiences in 1994 and rarely reflect their lives today, and the complexities of living in two different worlds simultaneously; as both memory keepers and as everyday citizens, who are trying to self-actualise and realise their dreams and ambitions. Now, I’m not saying that this programme is doing that exactly, but it’s an attempt to show that life has changed, and that now some of us have children and they are asking questions. I want to reflect that continuity of time.
The BBC Radio 4 is a huge platform and I feel incredibly privileged to have been commissioned. But now that I have finished the programme, I reflect on what I would have loved to do differently. I would have loved to have interviewed more survivors and to have had more time to explore in depth what it means to be a parent of a second-generation survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi. It’s such an important topic that isn’t fully explored to its potential. I hope it generates academic research interests; it’s essential that we figure out what it means to be a parent of a second-generation survivor, as well as understanding intergenerational trauma.
I used radio because I trained as a journalist so it’s what I know how to do. I am thankful that I was able to find a way to reflect on such an important subject.
Has your journey as a survivor contributed to your desire to pursue academia?
You could say that it’s a trauma inspired ambition, but I don’t have a problem with that. Most of us have to find something to inspire us and in many ways everything I have done in the last twenty-seven years was shaped by the genocide against the Tutsis. By the end of the genocide (July 1994), I had just turned fourteen. When you are that age, it’s the beginning of adolescence, the age of transformation. It is such a difficult age in the best of circumstances. Looking back now, I don’t know if I am the person I was meant to be, but I know the struggle to define yourself after the genocide is shared by so many other survivors, in Rwanda and elsewhere. The fight to find another way to say who you are and to make a statement about yourself are essential elements of surviving. And for me, learning and writing have provided a venue to do so and I am grateful. I feel very, very privileged that I am able to do these things because it means I am in a position to extricate myself from sadness and sorrow. I have made a step forward. I am alive.
Thank you, you are truly the most remarkable person I’ve spoken to
You are so kind, thank you. But in all honesty, I am not unique and there are so many more survivors, every single one of us carries wounds and scars that are unimaginable. I am humbled every day when I hear their stories, it inspires me – to see that people who have gone through other unimaginable kinds of pain are still here, and are still alive. That’s one of the things that I understood in this programme; I kept thinking about my children, then I realised there are thousands of other children, my children will not be alone. They will find their people, the same way that I found my people. That’s the key lesson I think I’ve learned from this programme, recognising that I am not alone, we are alive, all fighting different battles obviously, but we are here. And, therefore, our children will be okay because we are still here, we didn’t die.
Alice plans to pursue academic research following the completion of her PhD and hopes to take some time to think about where to take her next steps.